In the past bialys have never attained a popularity similar to the popularity of bagels because of the expense of making a bialy compared to the expense of making a bagel. The reason for the price differential is that the bagel is made by a machine while the bialy has heretofore always required a manual shaping operation. The bialy requires a flat, relatively dense, center portion completely surrounded by an upstanding outer rim portion of softer dough. Applicants have devised an apparatus and a method for forming dough into the bialy shape automatically, by subjecting the dough to heat and to different degrees of pressure across the surface of the dough piece to produce the required flat relatively thin dense center portion and the softer outer rim portion completely surrounding the center portion. The new method of making bialys eliminates the costly manual shaping operation heretofore deemed necessary in the commercial production of bialys.
In addition to the increased speed of production inherent in the elimination of the step of manually shaping the bialy, the improved method also disclosed herein produces a more uniform product because each bialy has exactly the same shape and the same texture as every other bialy.